Lessons & Ideas for K'nex, Legos, Lego Mindstorms, & Capsela
I don't know of too many moms who, at one time or another, hasn't had the painful experience of stepping on Legos barefoot. You look at these pieces & KNOW there must be more you can do with them, but what? Let's face it, the price of some of these kits rivals the most expensive texts, so we might as well be able to use them for school! Below, you will find links on how to integrate Legos & K'nex into your curriculum!
K'nex Lessons & Ideas | Lego Lessons & Ideas | Lego Mindstorm's Lessons & Ideas | Capsela Lessons & Ideas
Knex Lessons & Ideas
K'nex Education offers info on their educational sets you can order. If you click on Classroom K'NEXions, you can download some lesson plans & get info on subscribing to their classroom newsletter. You can also get on their mailing list & get info on competitions.
K'nex Math & Science Mini-Design Briefs has links to over 50 projects with lesson plans! Some of these links were not working correctly when I went there BUT quite a few of them are!
Scott's K'NEX Design Gallery includes a lot of images of projects he has built. Although there aren't any explicit instructions on this page, there are a lot of good ideas to use as a springboard for your own projects.
Lego Lessons & Ideas
AIMS offers 2 nice, & reasonably priced, curriculums for use with Lego Technics pieces: Brick Layers & Brick Layers 2. If you do a search from the main page using the word "Lego" in the description, you will also come up with the sets needed to do these kits or, if you have a "lego maniac" in the house, you may be better off buying the books & then just ordering supplemental pieces from Lego.
David A. Karr's LEGO® Collection has lots of links to jumpstart those creative juices!
Gander's Academy Lego Dacta Activities: Gears has eight experiments with lesson plans.
Jacob's Lego Building Instructions has directions for several original models with links to more models.
LDAPS: LEGO Design and Programming System is a NASA site. Although it looks like it is all robotics, check out the curriculum links & the regular links button for Lego projects & the mailing list may apply, too!
Lego Abacaus has the instructions on how to build it.
LEGO® Instruction and Catalog Scans has a large selection of directions for discontinued Lego kits.
Legoman34's Main Page click on the list & be amazed! There are pictures of fantastic creations here, from castle walls shown piece by piece & then put together to centaurs, satyrs, & Pegasus!
Open Directory: Lego has lots of links to check out!
Open Directory: Lego Castle listings is a great starting point to check out if you are considering building a castle for your study of the middle ages; some of these are outrageous!
PCS Edventures is an online curriculum using legos for ages 6 & up. They have a short trial period & then charge $7.95 a month.
Upgraded Lego Genetics Here is a lesson for when you are covering genetic traits.
Weird Richard - A Lego Odyssey has lots of lesson plan & model ideas.
Lego Mindstorm's Lessons & Ideas
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a group that allows you to compete locally & nationally designing robots with the Mindstorms set.
Green Alien Home Page has several projects you can build, info on a competition, & links to other Mindstorm & Lego pages.
LDAPS: LEGO Design and Programming System is a NASA site that includes 2 programming interfaces you can use with the Mindstorm kit: Builder, for kids as young as 5 & Engineer, for kids in 4th grade & up. Both are free downloads. (You will see references to Robolab; that is the school version of Mindstorms. Make sure you check out the Robolab links, too!). A teacher's guide, curriculum ideas, sample programs, & a mailing list included at this site. The main link isn't working, but the other ones are for now!
Lego Logo Lesson Plans contains 4 lessons designed by college students for grades 6 & up.
Lego Robot Pages has info on the programming language, a sample robot, tips, & nice collection of links.
TFM's Home Page includes the directions for 3 homemade sensors you can use with your Mindstorm set & links to other Mindstorm sites.
Capsela Ideas & Lessons
© 1999 - 2004mtanis@geocities.com
|